FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 29, 2018
Contact: Hannah Packman, 202-554-1600
[email protected]
WASHINGTON – Throughout his campaign for and tenure as president, Donald Trump has consistently pledged to support American-grown biofuels. However, his administration has too often failed to follow through on those promises in a timely fashion.
In the most recent of such instances, President Trump announced his intentions to allow the use of E15 gasoline in summer months. Though National Farmers Union (NFU), a grassroots policy organization that has long advocated the expanded use of biofuels as a means to promote the economic viability of family farmers and the vibrancy of rural communities, was initially encouraged by the news, little has been done to enact the proposal.
Making matters worse, while promising to authorize E15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been covertly granting so-called “hardship waivers” to oil refineries owned by large corporations with multi-billion dollar revenues. These waivers exempted the refiners from complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), ultimately saved those corporations tens of millions of dollars while reducing the volume of renewable fuels in the transportation sector.
In response to the administration’s ongoing inaction, the organization today launched a radio ad buy urging President Donald Trump to keep his promises to family farmers by immediately implementing year-round E-15 and reversing the losses caused by the misappropriation of small refinery exemptions.
“Farmers are still at a net loss from Trump’s actions on biofuels,” the ad says, due to the EPA’s allocation of waivers exempting large oil refiners from complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This decision has “destroyed 2 billion gallons of ethanol demand,” a volume that far exceeds any increased use of E15 expected over the next five years.
To make amends for the profound damage done to the biofuel industry, NFU is calling on President Trump to “do right by his promise to support American farmers” and “move quickly on E15 and support net increases in biofuels use – not cuts.”
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To download an audio file of the radio ad, visit our website at nfu.org/audio.
About NFU
National Farmers Union advocates on behalf of nearly 200,000 American farm families and their communities. We envision a world in which farm families and their communities are respected, valued, and enjoy economic prosperity and social justice.
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